Yesterday I attended MIT’s Roundtable on the Digital Economy. It was a gathering convened by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, the authors of Race Against the Machine, to discuss “Work and Value in the Digital Economy.” The gathering brought together an interesting mix of academics, startups, investors (yours truly) and policy experts. I don’t have time this morning for more detailed thoughts, but I came away with a clearer grasp of some of the central questions: 1. Is work actually dimini...

Yesterday I attended MIT’s Roundtable on the Digital Economy. It was a gathering convened by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, the authors of Race Against the Machine, to discuss “Work and Value in the Digital Economy.” The gathering brought together an interesting mix of academics, startups, investors (yours truly) and policy experts. I don’t have time this morning for more detailed thoughts, but I came away with a clearer grasp of some of the central questions: 1. Is work actually dimini...

I have been meaning to write about the NY Times piece on royalties in the age of streaming music. People have talked about how real dollars have turned into digital nickels when music went online and sales went from records to individual songs. With streaming, the argument goes, “the river of nickels looks more like a torrent of micropennies.” The first big gaping whole in the article was that it made no attempt at unpacking what part of the economics goes to labels versus individual artists....

I have been meaning to write about the NY Times piece on royalties in the age of streaming music. People have talked about how real dollars have turned into digital nickels when music went online and sales went from records to individual songs. With streaming, the argument goes, “the river of nickels looks more like a torrent of micropennies.” The first big gaping whole in the article was that it made no attempt at unpacking what part of the economics goes to labels versus individual artists....

Russell Brand helped edit the latest issue of New Statesman. He leads off the magazine with an epic rant that is worth reading in its entirety. If you need some motivation, watch this 10 minute clip of him. Essentially, Brand is calling for a revolution. It would be easy to dismiss Brand as a slightly lunatic comedian who lives a very comfortable life. But I think that would be a mistake. Aside from having a wonderful way with words, I find that Brand gives expression to a sentiment that seem...

Russell Brand helped edit the latest issue of New Statesman. He leads off the magazine with an epic rant that is worth reading in its entirety. If you need some motivation, watch this 10 minute clip of him. Essentially, Brand is calling for a revolution. It would be easy to dismiss Brand as a slightly lunatic comedian who lives a very comfortable life. But I think that would be a mistake. Aside from having a wonderful way with words, I find that Brand gives expression to a sentiment that seem...

On Monday I posted about looking for a Research Assistant primarily to look into questions around using Basic Income Guarantees as a way to deal with what I believe is the end of work as we know it. Then yesterday Fred wrote a terrific post on the Limits of Capitalism and linked to my earlier post driving more traffic to it. The net result is that I now have many wonderful folks interested in helping out and will be sorting through that over the weekend. In the meantime though I wanted to add...

On Monday I posted about looking for a Research Assistant primarily to look into questions around using Basic Income Guarantees as a way to deal with what I believe is the end of work as we know it. Then yesterday Fred wrote a terrific post on the Limits of Capitalism and linked to my earlier post driving more traffic to it. The net result is that I now have many wonderful folks interested in helping out and will be sorting through that over the weekend. In the meantime though I wanted to add...

Last weekend I wrote a post about what is happening with employment. The gist was that employment in the US in agriculture and manufacturing has collapsed as a percentage of total employment and declined even in absolute terms mostly as a result of increased productivity and globalization. All employment growth has been concentrated in services. Today I want to take a deeper dive on services, but before doing so I should point out that I am optimistic about technology in the long run. My poin...

Last weekend I wrote a post about what is happening with employment. The gist was that employment in the US in agriculture and manufacturing has collapsed as a percentage of total employment and declined even in absolute terms mostly as a result of increased productivity and globalization. All employment growth has been concentrated in services. Today I want to take a deeper dive on services, but before doing so I should point out that I am optimistic about technology in the long run. My poin...

I am still working on my third post about employment. As part of that I have been reading up on the rise of inequality in the US and its effects on society. In that process I came across this interesting chart from a Morgan Stanley research report: It shows that rising income inequality has been highly correlated with increased political polarization since the mid 1970s (found via Business Insider). Then just a few minutes ago I saw in my Tumblr dashboard that Robert Reich is making a documen...

I am still working on my third post about employment. As part of that I have been reading up on the rise of inequality in the US and its effects on society. In that process I came across this interesting chart from a Morgan Stanley research report: It shows that rising income inequality has been highly correlated with increased political polarization since the mid 1970s (found via Business Insider). Then just a few minutes ago I saw in my Tumblr dashboard that Robert Reich is making a documen...

This is the third post in my mini series on employment. Part 1 illustrated how agriculture and manufacturing, the two historically large areas of employment, have collapsed over time. Part 2 drilled into the services sector which today accounts for the bulk of employment to show that many categories there have stopped to grow and are under pressure from the twin forces of automation and globalization. Why does all of this matter? My overriding argument is that we have not found a new source o...

This is the third post in my mini series on employment. Part 1 illustrated how agriculture and manufacturing, the two historically large areas of employment, have collapsed over time. Part 2 drilled into the services sector which today accounts for the bulk of employment to show that many categories there have stopped to grow and are under pressure from the twin forces of automation and globalization. Why does all of this matter? My overriding argument is that we have not found a new source o...

As previously announced, I have self-published my MIT PhD thesis. Today’s post is about the first paper, which is titled “Information Technology and Firm Size” which – as the rather plain title suggests – examines statistical evidence of the impact of the increased use of IT on firm size. Before starting any analysis of data it helps to have a hypothesis and so the question is should we expect to see larger or smaller firms? Unfortunately, there are many different ways that computers might im...

As previously announced, I have self-published my MIT PhD thesis. Today’s post is about the first paper, which is titled “Information Technology and Firm Size” which – as the rather plain title suggests – examines statistical evidence of the impact of the increased use of IT on firm size. Before starting any analysis of data it helps to have a hypothesis and so the question is should we expect to see larger or smaller firms? Unfortunately, there are many different ways that computers might im...

This is the second post in my little project of self publishing my PhD Thesis. Last week I introduced an econometric analysis of the impact of Information Technology (IT) firm size. This time it is a more theoretical paper that presents a model for examining the impact of different types of IT on the structure of organizations. In particular, it compares having no IT, with centralized IT (think mainframes) and networked IT (think Internet and Intranet). I was particularly happy with how this ...

This is the second post in my little project of self publishing my PhD Thesis. Last week I introduced an econometric analysis of the impact of Information Technology (IT) firm size. This time it is a more theoretical paper that presents a model for examining the impact of different types of IT on the structure of organizations. In particular, it compares having no IT, with centralized IT (think mainframes) and networked IT (think Internet and Intranet). I was particularly happy with how this ...

In part 3 of this series I argued that the changes in employment are the main driver behind the massive rise in inequality in the US. That inevitably brings out a number of responses for how to address inequality, none of which I believe will actually work. At the end of that post I already showed a graph that debunks the notion that this can be solved through better education (at least of the traditional variety). Similarly we now have calls for better labor organizing and higher minimum wag...

In part 3 of this series I argued that the changes in employment are the main driver behind the massive rise in inequality in the US. That inevitably brings out a number of responses for how to address inequality, none of which I believe will actually work. At the end of that post I already showed a graph that debunks the notion that this can be solved through better education (at least of the traditional variety). Similarly we now have calls for better labor organizing and higher minimum wag...